The Little Orphan Annie tumor

Apr 17, 2009

Papillary thyroid carcinoma has a number of unique morphologic features. I mentioned psammoma bodies a few days ago. Illustrated above is another characteristic feature: Orphan Annie nuclei. These are so named because they have a “cleared-out” appearance, similar to Little Orphan Annie’s eyes. In fact, you can think of papillary thyroid carcinoma as the Little Orphan Annie tumor because:

1. It stays around for years and years without getting any bigger (papillary carcinoma is slow growing).
2. It is well-behaved and seldom kills people (overall, the 10-year survival for papillary carcinoma is >90%, which is better than the prognosis of any of the other types of thyroid carcinoma).
3. The nuclei resemble Little Orphan Annie’s eyes.
4. It often has psammoma bodies (derived from the Greek psammos, or sand): Annie’s dog is named Sandy.

I wish I could say I came up with this, but it comes from Ed’s Pathology Notes, a really wonderful pathology site for students (and anyone interested in pathology) at www.pathguy.com.

More pathology!

7 Comments

mark
on April 3, 2012 at 6:20 am

Add Annie is drawn on paper (PAPillary)

Lindsey
on December 3, 2012 at 7:38 pm

What does the term “papillary” refer to?

Kristine
on December 4, 2012 at 1:22 pm

“Papillary” refers to the way the tumor cells are arranged. Papillae are long, branching structures that have a fibrovascular core and are lined by tumor cells. They kind of look like tree trunks with branches. A papillary pattern is seen in lots of different kinds of tumors (like papillary thyroid carcinoma and papillary cystadenoma of the ovary).

Hui Mei
on December 31, 2013 at 12:43 am

Is intranuclear inclusion body which make the tumor cell looks like orphan Annie eye?

Kristine
on December 31, 2013 at 7:51 am

No – it is the arrangement of the chomatin in the tumor cells that gives the nuclei the Little Orphan Annie eyes (it condenses around the periphery of the nucleus, leaving the middle of the nucleus “empty”).

avnika
on October 15, 2015 at 1:14 am

why is this orphan annie appearance seen only on paraffin sections and not on cytology smears?